Benjamin Labatut was born in Rotterdam in 1980 and grew up in The Hague, Buenos Aires and Lima. When We Cease to Understand the World, his first book to be translated into English, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. Labatut lives with his family in Santiago, Chile.
'In fictionalising the history of the atomic bomb, Labatut has
landed on a chilling way to dramatise our contemporary fears.
Science Fiction-tinged nightmares about new nuclear threats and an
alien, self-learning system of intelligence are made both more real
and understandable through the voices of the people who gave birth
to them' -Literary Review
'If you've yet to sample Labatut, stop wasting time. Get on the
Labatut train.' - BookMunch
'Talent, ambition, skill, intelligence - [are] present in
abundance.' - Guardian, Book of the Day
'Captivating' - Irish Times
'Thrilling - and chilling [...] A gripping read.' - Marie Claire,
Best Books of 2023
'A dark, strange novel by a rising literary star' - New
Scientist
'Intoxicating... this marvel of a book, which inspires awe and
dread in equal measure, is stalked by the greatest terrors of the
20th century, yet its final heart-stopping sentence makes clear the
greatest terrors are yet to come' - Daily Mail
'As addictive as a true crime tale' - Mail on Sunday
'Absorbing... perfect for anyone thirsting for more nuclear anxiety
after watching Oppenheimer... reads like the physicist Carlo
Rovelli crossed with the cosmic horror of HP Lovecraft' - Chris
Power, Sunday Times
'Both entertains and provokes... [Labatut's] infernal vision of
science captures something of the unsettling vertigo of living
right here in the Anthropocene after all' - TLS
'Emerging as the most significant South American writer since
Borges... there is no one writing like him anywhere in the world' -
Interview in the Telegraph
'Brilliantly cerebral'- 5* Sunday Telegraph
'Praise for' - When We Cease to Understand the World:
'A monstrous and brilliant book' - Philip Pullman
'Mesmerising and revelatory' - William Boyd
'Ingenious, intricate and deeply disturbing' - John Banville
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